MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico may be sitting on a vast untapped reserve of shale oil just south of the Rio Grande, but state monopoly Pemex is showing little urgency to exploit their share of the bounty.

While U.S. energy companies are racing to drill more wells in the oil-rich Eagle Ford shale play that geologists say extends well south of the border, Mexican energy officials and Pemex executives appear unrushed.

COLONIA JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – In the craggy desert of northern Mexico, U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s relatives turned an arid valley into lush agricultural land and prospered after being chased from the United States for their Mormon beliefs.

They suffered years of hardship, living in dirt dugouts and overturned wagons, but then went on to build sturdy homes and a thriving school, develop irrigation canals and dams, raise herds of cattle, and plant vast peach and apple orchards from the punishing landscape.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Voters from Mexico’s ruling conservative party selected their first woman presidential candidate on Sunday, choosing a former education minister to battle the opposition’s nominee, who has a big lead in the polls.

National Action Party (PAN) voters threw their support behind party congressional leader Josefina Vazquez Mota, pushing aside Ernesto Cordero, a close ally of President Felipe Calderon.

CIUDAD JUAREZ (Reuters) – In March, municipal police officers detained the two brothers of Armida Vazquez and whisked them away in patrol cars.

Vazquez and her mother searched for Dante and Juan Carlos, cell-phone shop workers in their mid-20s, and checked with the local and federal police here, to no avail. Nineteen days later, the strangled bodies of the brothers were found on the outskirts of this notoriously violent city. Witness testimony and other evidence led to three policemen, now in jail awaiting trial.

CIUDAD JUAREZ (Reuters) – In March, municipal police officers detained the two brothers of Armida Vazquez and whisked them away in patrol cars.

Vazquez and her mother searched for Dante and Juan Carlos, cellphone shop workers in their mid-20s, and checked with the local and federal police here, to no avail. Nineteen days later, the strangled bodies of the brothers were found on the outskirts of this notoriously violent city. Witness testimony and other evidence led to three policemen, now in jail awaiting trial.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) – When architect Felipe de Jesus Corona built Mexico’s most powerful drug lord a 200-foot-long tunnel under the U.S.-Mexican border with a hydraulic lift entrance opened by a fake water tap, the kingpin was impressed.

The architect “made me one f—ing cool tunnel” Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman said, according to court testimony that helped sentence Corona to 18 years in prison in 2006.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) – When architect Felipe de Jesus Corona built Mexico’s most powerful drug lord a 200-foot-long tunnel under the U.S.-Mexican border with a hydraulic lift entrance opened by a fake water tap, the kingpin was impressed.

The architect “made me one f—ing cool tunnel” Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman said, according to court testimony that helped sentence Corona to 18 years in prison in 2006.

About Mica

"I cover commodities and general news in Mexico and Central America and as part of the team in Latin America reported on the outbreak of swine flu, a coup in Honduras and the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. Before Mexico, I was based in Guatemala for two years."